Title: Variegated digitalisation? Comparing digital trajectories in two I4.0 manufactures in Northern Italy

Authors: Sara Caria; Francesco Garibaldo; Matteo Rinaldini

Addresses: Department of Communication and Economics, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Viale Antonio Allegri, 9, 42121 Reggio Emilia, Italy ' Centro di Documentazione e Ricerca 'Claudio Sabattini', FIOM Nazionale Corso Trieste, 36 Roma, Italy ' Department of Communication and Economics, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Viale Antonio Allegri, 9, 42121 Reggio Emilia, Italy

Abstract: The debate on digitisation and changes in manufacturing has focused on the digital twin/digital shadow, two trajectories of technology implementation with different implications for work processes. At the same time, many studies suggest that digitalisation in practice is implemented in different ways on the base of the characteristics of the context, nurturing the varieties of digital capitalism theoretical perspective. This paper explores empirically the digital trajectories implemented by two German owned manufacture plants in Northern Italy. Both companies, leaders in their respective fields (sports cars and high-tech room air conditioners), are inspired by lean principles and adhere to the I4.0 paradigm, to which the literature refers the digital twin trajectory, but the two companies are characterised by different contexts. The results suggest that in both cases, despite adherence to the I4.0 paradigm, there is a predominance of the digital shadow trajectory, but the underlying reasons for this predominance differ. On a theoretical level, while the study confirms the usefulness of the varieties of digital capitalism perspective, it also suggests the opportunity to complement it with the concept of variegated digitalisation, a more appropriate concept to understand the multiscalar dimension and the polymorphic and dynamic character of contexts.

Keywords: Industry 4.0; lean production; digital twin/shadow trajectories; manufacturing; variegated digitalisation; varieties of digitalisation; Italy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJATM.2025.148813

International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, 2025 Vol.25 No.3, pp.250 - 273

Received: 23 Jul 2024
Accepted: 23 Jan 2025
Published online: 26 Sep 2025 *

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